What do you think about the new XBOX Series X?

[Mark Kaine]

12 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

Um... it's from Microsoft themselves: https://www.xbox.com/en-US/consoles/xbox-series-x/

It is inline with the overall design of the Xbone and Xbone X as well, I don't see why they'd announce this and then change the design. 

Haha nice!  It even looks more fake on that site but I guess it's real then.  

 

 

Im also getting Foreman grill flashbacks lmao... 

[ShredBird]

A 2.1 GHz Zen 2 will absolutely slaughter the current gen Jag cores. Jaguar was not a fast architecture when it came out, it was akin to Intel Atom and meant for netbooks and tablets, I honestly wonder how much that has held back the current gen.

 

GPU is likely a "second gen" RDNA. As far as I know the current 5700 series has holdover hardware from GCN as a stop gap, but these new RDNA chips should be a full RDNA through and through. They will likely also implement AMD's hybrid raytracing approach that was detailed in a patent and whitepaper a while back. AMD has found a way to repurpose existing hardware on the GPU to hardware accelerate raytracing. Some dedicated hardware will still be needed, but not to extent that Nvidia's approach uses. That means less die space taken up by RT, it'll be interesting to see the trade space of using a hybrid approach.

 

Overall, I like it a lot and I'm excited to see how the Xbox platform bleeds into the PC space.

[Mark Kaine]

1 hour ago, ShredBird said:

A 2.1 GHz Zen 2 will absolutely slaughter the current gen Jag cores. Jaguar was not a fast architecture when it came out, it was akin to Intel Atom and meant for netbooks and tablets, I honestly wonder how much that has held back the current gen.

 

GPU is likely a "second gen" RDNA. As far as I know the current 5700 series has holdover hardware from GCN as a stop gap, but these new RDNA chips should be a full RDNA through and through. They will likely also implement AMD's hybrid raytracing approach that was detailed in a patent and whitepaper a while back. AMD has found a way to repurpose existing hardware on the GPU to hardware accelerate raytracing. Some dedicated hardware will still be needed, but not to extent that Nvidia's approach uses. That means less die space taken up by RT, it'll be interesting to see the trade space of using a hybrid approach.

 

Overall, I like it a lot and I'm excited to see how the Xbox platform bleeds into the PC space.

 

Hehe,  honestly that reads kind of like some insider *top secret* stuff and I think you could be spot on too. 

 

Though isn't the biggest issue - generally - the thermals, in which case this PC style Xbox makes a *lot* of sense.  I can definitely see Sony struggling to match the performance, simply due to thermal design... I just can't see Sony doing something efficient,  that was never their fortune or strength, if you know what I mean. 

 

This will be certainly interesting to watch. 

[Bombastinator]

10 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

 

Hehe,  honestly that reads kind of like some insider *top secret* stuff and I think you could be spot on too. 

 

Though isn't the biggest issue - generally - the thermals, in which case this PC style Xbox makes a *lot* of sense.  I can definitely see Sony struggling to match the performance, simply due to thermal design... I just can't see Sony doing something efficient,  that was never their fortune or strength, if you know what I mean. 

 

This will be certainly interesting to watch. 

From what I’ve heard it’s not just 2.1 it’s 2.1 8/16. Or effectively 6/12 or 7/14 or whatever they set aside for OS.

we know Sony has A design that works: the toilet seat.  Can they make something that looks decent is the question.  The CPU I understand is near identical, and the GPUs are similar.  There’s just the storage system and the software.  The GPU is supposed to be navi21 I’d some sort.  Low power Navi21 because a console can’t draw 200w.  The problem is navi21 is kind of an unknown.

[Mark Kaine]

14 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

aside for OS.

we know Sony has A design that works: the toilet seat.  Can they make something that looks decent is the question.  The CPU I understand is near identical, and the GPUs are similar.  There’s just the storage system and the software.  

That was my point though,  Sony has always weird ass prototypes, we don't really know anything about the final design,  yet? 

 

We know at least about the xbox that it does look like it has good thermals...  Huge grill and probably somewhere would be intakes too. 

 

And if heat is really an issue with these systems I'm sure Sony tries something similar, while still being "different"  and I just slightly doubt they can,  as Sony typically prefers looks over function... 

 

 

I really like the new xbox design,  on the other hand it's really nothing special just a box lol,  but I do like the simplicity of it. 

[Bombastinator]

10 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

That was my point though,  Sony has always weird ass prototypes, we don't really know anything about the final design,  yet? 

 

We know at least about the xbox that it does look like it has good thermals...  Huge grill and probably somewhere would be intakes too. 

 

And if heat is really an issue with these systems I'm sure Sony tries something similar, while still being "different"  and I just slightly doubt they can,  as Sony typically prefers looks over function... 

 

 

I really like the new xbox design,  on the other hand it's really nothing special just a box lol,  but I do like the simplicity of it. 

I guess my point is I’m just not willing to do any chicken counting yet.  “Looks like” does not automatically mean “does”.  A chimney system requires some sort of bottom air.  Intel’s choice there is going to matter and it hasn’t been seen yet.  That particular Xbox design was one of the early ones iirc and was released with several others. It was considered to be one of the more “artsy” ones. Sony would have been designing around it as a possible competitor. Since the hardware for the two is very similar, thermals probably equate pretty directly to device speed.  I suspect Sony doesn’t dare to have a slower system.  I guess my point is that I don’t know yet and am hesitant to make any hard assumptions.  There was a release of actual photos of the Sony mule rigs which implies someone at least wants  the toilet seat to be at least very similar to the one Sony chooses.  It’s just an implication though.  I think it’s premature to draw conclusions still.  We will find out soon enough.

[Mark Kaine]

3 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

I guess my point is I’m just not willing to do any chicken counting yet

I just think it's fun speculating - and while not final,  I'm pretty sure that "toilet seat" has shit thermals (pardon the pun lol) 

[Giganthrax]

I heard the new xbox is going to have full mouse and keyboard control.

 

If they do that, and they make all the kb+m games available on Xbox, and they removed the xbox live subscription, then I could maaaaaaaaaybe see myself buying an xbox in like 7-8 years to serve as a budget gaming PC. 

[steelo]

11 hours ago, Giganthrax said:

I heard the new xbox is going to have full mouse and keyboard control.

 

If they do that, and they make all the kb+m games available on Xbox, and they removed the xbox live subscription, then I could maaaaaaaaaybe see myself buying an xbox in like 7-8 years to serve as a budget gaming PC. 

I lost interest in console gaming years ago, especially with the almost mandatory xbox subscriptions. I find the constant logging in and updates to be very annoying when I just want to put in a game and play.

[Giganthrax]

48 minutes ago, steelo said:

I lost interest in console gaming years ago, especially with the almost mandatory xbox subscriptions. I find the constant logging in and updates to be very annoying when I just want to put in a game and play.

I don't actually care for console gaming myself, but I figure I'm going to be a family man 5-10 years from now, and won't have the $$$ to buy expensive PC hardware, so a budget option like a console may be the better choice. 

[Zando_]

2 minutes ago, Giganthrax said:

I don't actually care for console gaming myself, but I figure I'm going to be a family man 5-10 years from now, and won't have the $$$ to buy expensive PC hardware, so a budget option like a console may be the better choice. 

Also easier for kids to use and harder for them to break, there's that too. 

[Bombastinator]

10 minutes ago, Giganthrax said:

I don't actually care for console gaming myself, but I figure I'm going to be a family man 5-10 years from now, and won't have the $$$ to buy expensive PC hardware, so a budget option like a console may be the better choice. 

I’m not either.  I consider the use of a controller to be a non starter.  I even bought a steam controller (before they were dirt cheap) to see if that would help enough.  It didn’t.

[ShredBird]

On 12/14/2019 at 3:02 PM, Mark Kaine said:

 

Hehe,  honestly that reads kind of like some insider *top secret* stuff and I think you could be spot on too. 

 

Though isn't the biggest issue - generally - the thermals, in which case this PC style Xbox makes a *lot* of sense.  I can definitely see Sony struggling to match the performance, simply due to thermal design... I just can't see Sony doing something efficient,  that was never their fortune or strength, if you know what I mean. 

 

This will be certainly interesting to watch. 

I think their design with the offset disk drive makes a lot of sense. Because of the APU design, it's probably just a single large vapor chamber cooler with fins oriented along the length, single inlet, single outlet uninterrupted. Kind of reminds me of how a rack system is cooled, which means despite protest of it being a tall system, it probably does just fine laid on its side.

 

As far as efficiency goes, Zen 2 is already a very efficient architecture. RDNA although 7nm is still less efficient than what Nvidia offers though. But, because it's a custom design, that means the transistor structures and power delivery can be highly optimized for the target clock speed. Think transistors built for eco rather than raw speed plus a Max-Q like tuning.

 

I wonder what boost behaviors will be like if at all present on the system. Surely games that don't overly multithread would benefit from boost as would the GPU to absorb a little bit of load volatility.

[Totallycasual]

Honestly i don't really care if they come up with the most bad ass and powerful console ever, if they don't have much in the way of first party exclusives or single player narrative driven titles i just have no reason to buy one.  If this generation is anything to go by, i'll have my gaming PC as my primary device and then i'll have a PS5 for Sony exclusives and maybe a Nintendo for Zelda but that's it, give me a reason to want an X-Box, Microsoft! 

[Mira Yurizaki]

On 12/16/2019 at 10:55 AM, ShredBird said:

I wonder what boost behaviors will be like if at all present on the system. Surely games that don't overly multithread would benefit from boost as would the GPU to absorb a little bit of load volatility.

If this is going to be a thing, then I imagine the application must tell the OS it wants a certain profile and the OS will limit the application to using only X number of cores.

 

However, one thing that I'm pretty certain is that any clock frequency changes won't be dynamic as the application is running. It has to be fixed as long as the application is running to guarantee the performance a developer is expecting.

[ShredBird]

5 hours ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

If this is going to be a thing, then I imagine the application must tell the OS it wants a certain profile and the OS will limit the application to using only X number of cores.

 

However, one thing that I'm pretty certain is that any clock frequency changes won't be dynamic as the application is running. It has to be fixed as long as the application is running to guarantee the performance a developer is expecting.

Yeah I would agree, something akin to how the Nintendo Switch has a bunch of different "OC" modes that the developer can tap into.

[Ertman]

On 12/13/2019 at 12:34 PM, Intransigent said:

My very first thoughts seeing that new console are...

• It should cost exactly what it costs to build a PC equivalent.
• There should be no reason it can't achieve 90-120 fps in every single game with that amount of space to work with.
• If it achieves 90+ fps in 4K in most of its games, pretty sure PC gamers are going to be interested in switching back to console.
• With these things being said, it's probably going to be priced insanely high, and for good reason if it achieves all this.

Generally at launch the PCS have been equal or better priced than a similarly speed PC. So if you want 90+fps in 4k Games, which is very unrealistic given AMD and target market,  then you should expect a really expensive console, as a PC capable of doing that is VERY expensive.

 

[Mira Yurizaki]

On 12/13/2019 at 9:34 AM, Intransigent said:

• With these things being said, it's probably going to be priced insanely high, and for good reason if it achieves all this.

Microsoft's and Sony's strategy with hardware has been to sell them at a loss and make up the difference in software sales. I don't think either has sold a console at profit right out the gate, though Sony came close with the PS4.

 

8 minutes ago, Ertman said:

Generally at launch the PCS have been equal or better priced than a similarly speed PC. So if you want 90+fps in 4k Games, which is very unrealistic given AMD and target market,  then you should expect a really expensive console, as a PC capable of doing that is VERY expensive.

The Xbox 360 out the gate could do things PCs were capable of doing if they had a ~$400 video card.

[Bombastinator]

1 minute ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

Microsoft's and Sony's strategy with hardware has been to sell them at a loss and make up the difference in software sales. I don't think either has sold a console at profit right out the gate, though Sony came close with the PS4.

Yep.  They call it “the razor blade model”. As the safety razor was the most famous instance of this one.

[Paul Rudd]

4 hours ago, Ertman said:

the PCS

What's a PCS?

3 hours ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

I don't think either has sold a console at profit right out the gate

That's because no console has achieved 90+ fps. Doing so adds hundreds of dollars in value alone. 24-30 fps in the majority of titles on consoles is what keeps my Xbox One collecting dust. Dealing with 24-30 fps, especially in competitive gaming, gives the meaning to the word frustration.

[Mira Yurizaki]

2 minutes ago, Intransigent said:

That's because no console has achieved 90+ fps. Doing so adds hundreds of dollars in value alone. 24-30 fps in the majority of titles on consoles is what keeps my Xbox One collecting dust. Dealing with 24-30 fps, especially in competitive gaming, gives the meaning to the word frustration.

And back then nobody was demanding the performance people are apparently demanding now. The 90+ FPS of the day was 60FPS still.

 

When the Xbox 360 came into the picture, the big thing was gaming in high definition and PCs at the time still needed video cards worth hundreds of dollars to even get close to whatever the acceptable performance and quality was for the PCMR's of the time. And the base model could be purchased for the cost of one of those video cards. Looking further back at the original Xbox, sporting a GPU that couldn't be matched for at least a generation in the PC space. It started at $299. According to Wikipedia, it cost $425 to manufacture. The equivalent PC would've easily reached $800 or so.

 

So no, I don't think whatever new features or other marketing blurbs they want to say about the new Xbox will add "hundreds of dollars of value" that will be passed onto the customer unless for whatever reason Microsoft decides to try to sell the hardware for profit.

[Paul Rudd]

3 hours ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

I don't think whatever new features or other marketing blurbs they want to say about the new Xbox will add "hundreds of dollars of value"

If it can achieve 90+ fps in 4K, in all of its games, it's automatically the price of a PC equivalent of achieving those numbers. And I'm not talking about full-on Ultra. I'm referring to a really well "Ultra-like" mix of graphic settings. Ya' know, what newer consoles are configured towards.

 

You can exclude the most highest demanding titles provide they meet 4K/60. Assassins Creed Origins/Odyssey for example. Even dropping into the 50's is acceptable for those types of titles.

[Bombastinator]

12 minutes ago, Intransigent said:

If it can achieve 90+ fps in 4K, in all of its games, it's automatically the price of a PC equivalent of achieving those numbers.

 

You can exclude the most highest demanding titles provide they meet 4K/60. Assassins Creed Origins/Odyssey for example. Even dropping into the 50's is acceptable for those types of titles.

No it’s not worth as much.  More than it was perhaps, but not as much.  The reason is because while It does help but there are problems.

 

 A PC is a general purpose device and a console isnt.  It COULD be one, it’s got the hardware, but the ability is specifically locked out.  That’s value reduction.

no keyboard/mouse, (yes you can attach them, but you can’t really use them so who cares?) no ability to use common systems, no freedom, basically.  That is also worth something.  For your claim to work that has to be worth zero, and it isn’t.

[Paul Rudd]

22 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

No it’s not worth as much. More than it was perhaps, but not as much. The reason is because while It does help but there are problems. A PC is a general purpose device and a console isnt.  It COULD be one, it’s got the hardware, but the ability is specifically locked out. no keyboard/mouse, no ability to use common systems, no freedom, basically.  That is also worth something.  For your claim to work that has to be worth zero, and it isn’t.

• No K&M support - Tough to put a value on this. Point made on this one.
• No ability to use common systems - Valued at roughly $15.00 to $90.00(suckers do exist). Windows 10 is actually free and can be installed on a $15.00 PC.
• No freedom - This freedom you speak of... What can't a $15.00 Windows 10 PC do? Aside from game at 90+ fps in 4K?

Doing what I do from Windows 10, I could care less if I do, from a console sitting right beside it or in the other room.

 

What has tons of value, imo, is editing video. But not every gamer cares to edit video. Most console gamers just wanna play games.

[Mira Yurizaki]

11 hours ago, Intransigent said:

If it can achieve 90+ fps in 4K, in all of its games, it's automatically the price of a PC equivalent of achieving those numbers.

Historically that was never the case. Consoles at launch were typically on par, if not better than, PCs at the time while costing hundreds less to achieve the equivalent result. If it ends up costing the consumer something like $700+, sure I'll be surprised, but that's not what I'm going to bet on.